II. Property, in its turn, violates equality by the rights of exclusion and increase, and freedom by despotism. The former effect of property having been sufficiently developed in the last three chapters, I will content myself here with establishing by a final comparison, its perfect identity with robbery.
The Latin words for robber are fur and latro; the former taken from the Greek φορ, from φηρω, Latin fero, I carry away; the latter from λαθρω, I play the part of a brigand, which is derived from ληθω, Latin lateo, I conceal myself. The Greeks have also κλεπτης, from κλεπτω, I filch, whose radical consonants are the same as those of καλνπτω, I cover, I conceal. Thus, in these languages, the idea of a robber is that of a man who conceals, carries away, or diverts, in any manner whatever, a thing which does not belong to him.
The Hebrews expressed the same idea by the word gannab—robber—from the verb ganab, which means to put away, to turn aside: lo thi-gnob (Decalogue: Eighth Commandment), thou shalt not steal—that is, thou shalt not hold back, thou shalt not put away anything for thyself. That is the act of a man who, on entering into a society into which he agrees to bring all that he has, secretly reserves a portion, as did the celebrated disciple Ananias.
The etymology of the French verb voler is still more significant. Voler, or faire la vole (from the Latin vola, palm of the hand), means to take all the tricks in a game of ombre; so that le voleur, the robber, is the capitalist who takes all, who gets the lion’s share. Probably this verb voler had its origin in the professional slang of thieves, whence it has passed into common use, and, consequently into the phraseology of the law.
Robbery is committed in a variety of ways, which have been very cleverly distinguished and classified by legislators according to their heinousness or merit, to the end that some robbers may be honored, while others are punished.
We rob—1. By murder on the highway; 2. Alone, or in a band; 3. By breaking into buildings, or scaling walls; 4. By abstraction; 5. By fraudulent bankruptcy; 6. By forgery of the handwriting of public officials or private individuals; 7. By manufacture of counterfeit money.
This species includes all robbers who practise their profession with no other aid than force and open fraud. Bandits, brigands, pirates, rovers by land and sea—these names were gloried in by the ancient heroes, who thought their profession as noble as it was lucrative. Nimrod, Theseus, Jason and his Argonauts; Jephthah, David, Cacus, Romulus, Clovis and all his Merovingian descendants; Robert Guiscard, Tancred de Hauteville, Bohemond, and most of the Norman heroes—were brigands and robbers. The heroic character of the robber is expressed in this line from Horace, in reference to Achilles—
“Jura neget sibi nata, nihil non arroget armis,”31
and by this sentence from the dying words of Jacob (Genesis 48), which the Jews apply to David, and the Christians to their Christ: Manus ejus contra omnes. In our day, the robber—the warrior of the ancients—is pursued with the utmost vigor. His profession, in the language of the code, entails ignominious and corporal penalties, from imprisonment to the scaffold. A sad change in opinions here below!
We rob—8. By cheating; 9. By swindling; 10. By abuse of trust; 11. By games and lotteries.
This second species was encouraged by the laws of Lycurgus, in order to sharpen the wits of the young. It is the kind practised by Ulysses, Solon, and Sinon; by the ancient and modern Jews, from Jacob down to Deutz; and by the Bohemians, the Arabs, and all savage tribes. Under Louis XIII and Louis XIV, it was not considered dishonorable to cheat at play. To do so was a part of the game; and many worthy people did not scruple to correct the caprice of Fortune by dexterous jugglery. Today even, and in all countries, it is thought a mark of merit among peasants, merchants, and shopkeepers to know how to make a bargain—that is, to deceive one’s man. This is so universally accepted, that the cheated party takes no offence. It is known with what reluctance our government resolved upon the abolition of lotteries. It felt that it was dealing a stab thereby at property. The pickpocket, the blackleg, and the charlatan make especial use of their dexterity of hand, their subtlety of mind, the magic power of their eloquence, and their great fertility of invention. Sometimes they offer bait to cupidity. Therefore the penal code—which much prefers intelligence to muscular vigor—has made, of the four varieties mentioned above, a second category, liable only to correctional, not to ignominious, punishments.
Let them now accuse the law of being materialistic and atheistic.
We rob—12. By usury.
This species of robbery, so odious and so severely punished since the publication of the Gospel, is the connecting link between forbidden and authorized robbery. Owing to its ambiguous nature, it has given rise to a multitude of contradictions in the laws and in morals—contradictions which have been very cleverly turned to account by lawyers, financiers, and merchants. Thus the usurer, who lends on mortgage at ten, twelve, and fifteen percent, is heavily fined when detected; while the banker, who receives the same interest (not, it is true, upon a loan, but in the way of exchange or discount—that is, of sale), is protected
